CA Director General Francis Wangusi (pictured) during Kuza Awards in June/FILE – CA
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 2 – The number of new mobile subscriptions in Kenya has increased by 1.5 million to hit 51 million users in the three months ending March 2019.
A report by the Communication Authority (CA) of Kenya says that ownership of multiple SIM cards has seen mobile penetration rise to 106.8 percent, as consumers leverage on the variety of services available in the market.
During the period under review, Safaricom PLC’s share of mobile subscribers shrunk marginally from 63.3 percent to 62.4 percent while Airtel network’s market went up by 2.7 percent to stand at 26.1 percent.
Telkom Kenya’s market share dropped to 7.9 percent from 9.0 percent reported in the previous quarter.
At the same time, Finserve Africa shed 0.8 percentage points to register a market share of 3.4 percent.
Mobile Pay’s market share remained unchanged from last quarter’s 0.2 percent.
Mobile Money continues to grow
CA also noted an increase in the number of active mobile money subscriptions from 31.6 million to 32 million.
According to the report released on Tuesday, 564.8 million mobile money transfer transactions valued at Sh2.1 trillion were conducted.
During the period under review, consumers spent 571.5 million in mobile commerce transactions, valued at Sh1.84 trillion.
“Person-to-person transfers were valued at Sh737 billion,” the report says.
The number of active data/internet subscriptions went up by 2.5 percent to stand at 46.8 million, out of which 46.7 percent were on broadband.
Safaricom continued to register the highest market share in the data segment at 65.3 percent, followed by Airtel and Telkom limited at 26.9 and 7.2 percent respectively.
